Long Story Short

Long Story

Have you ever wondered how a guy like Tom Brady can play football at such a high level at his age, or how his wife Gisele Bundchen can maintain that rockin’ bod despite children and a hectic career? Have you ever wondered what, specifically, they eat in order to maintain said abilities and rockin bods? Probably not because, Christ, what a weird thing to wonder out loud. But now that we’ve wondered it, we’re thankful for this boston.com interview with Allen Campbell, personal chef to Tom and Gisele.

To begin with, their diet is mostly vegetables, what some people might call “flexitarian.” Which, hey, that’s a good start!

“So, 80 percent of what they eat is vegetables. [I buy] the freshest vegetables. If it’s not organic, I don’t use it. And whole grains: brown rice, quinoa, millet, beans. The other 20 percent is lean meats: grass-fed organic steak, duck every now and then, and chicken. As for fish, I mostly cook wild salmon.”

Besides the pointless adherence to organics, that sounds like a pretty tasty (if not spartan) way to eat. Even if the idea that humans were “meant” to eat a certain way is nebulous at best, a diet like this is probably the closest thing to that, if it exists. The real fun starts when he gets to what he DOESN’T feed them:

“No white sugar. No white flour. No MSG. I’ll use raw olive oil, but I never cook with olive oil. I only cook with coconut oil. Fats like canola oil turn into trans fats. ... I use Himalayan pink salt as the sodium. I never use iodized salt.

[Tom] doesn’t eat nightshades, because they’re not anti-inflammatory. So no tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, or eggplants. Tomatoes trickle in every now and then, but just maybe once a month. I’m very cautious about tomatoes. They cause inflammation.

What else? No coffee. No caffeine. No fungus. No dairy.”

This is where Campbell descends into mild quackery. If you don’t want to use iodized salt, to each his own, but iodine has its purposes. Then the bit about canola oil “turning into” trans fats (does Tom have a chemistry lab in his kitchen?), and the fact that everything the family eats is gluten free, and it’s pretty clear that this is the same kind of holistic, pseudoscientific crap bought into by wealthy housewives in cities and suburbs across the country.

That’s not to say it’s not healthy, of course — you’d be hard-pressed to eat healthier. But it also doesn’t sound like any kind of fun. Tom Brady’s weird crypto-diet may help him be a better football player into his late 30s and 40s, but it won’t help you be a better football player, or really a better anything. A slice of pizza, or a cookie, however, can be an astonishing source of happiness. Remember, everything in moderation.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question: What would a private conversation between Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen even sound like?

Disrupt Your Feed: I guess it’s dedication like this that leads them to the top of their fields.

Drop This Fact: No formal research has found that solanine, a chemical in tomatoes, actually causes inflammation or arthritis.